Why Ditch Elite Recruiter?
At first glance, the Elite Recruiter coaching ability seems like a must-have—it boosts recruiting points and CFB 26 Coins makes landing top recruits easier. However, it has major drawbacks:

Delayed availability: Small and mid-tier schools usually don’t unlock Elite Recruiter until year 5 or 6, which is often too late for shorter dynasty leagues.

Recruiting points cap: Even with Elite Recruiter, you start each recruiting week with a limited number of recruiting points (50 by default), which can make scouting and offers feel restrictive.

Competitive imbalance: Top-tier programs with Elite Recruiter dominate recruiting classes, making it frustrating for smaller programs to compete.

Because of these limitations, relying on Elite Recruiter can bottleneck your early recruiting efforts and slow your team’s growth.

Why Embrace Development Instead?
The real secret to building a dominant dynasty isn’t just recruiting highly rated players; it’s recruiting players who develop well over time.

Every recruit in CFB 26 has a development trait that determines their growth ceiling:

Elite Dev: Highest growth potential—players can become true stars.

Star Dev: High growth potential—players develop into solid starters or better.

Impact Dev: Moderate growth potential.

Normal Dev: Low growth potential—players plateau early.

Development traits matter more than star ratings because:

A 3-star player with Elite development often outperforms a 5-star recruit with Normal development over their college career.

Prioritizing recruits with great development traits allows you to build a team with consistently improving players.

It reduces the luck factor—players with good dev traits will reliably improve if coached right.

How This Strategy Changes Your Recruiting Approach
Instead of spending recruiting points to simply boost star ratings, you use a combination of scouting efficiency and player development coaching to cheap NCAA 26 Coins find hidden gems and nurture them into superstars.